Asylum
by Louise24601
Summary: Sara works as a doctor in an asylum when Michael Scofield is admitted into her institution. Diagnosed as a monomaniac, he is convinced an evil 'company' is trying to kill his brother. When Sara accidentally becomes involved in the conspiracy, she has no choice but to believe him and hope that, together, they can make it out alive. Mi/Sa. AU. Warnings: sexual situations, violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: The Michael Scofield Enigma**

 **AN** : the idea for this story came to me out of the blue. I'm certainly not an expert on mental illness so please don't take what I say at face value. Also, I more or less replicated the scene where Michael saves Sara from the riot for the sake of plot: I do know people who suffer from mental illness tend to be a danger to themselves, not others, and I don't mean to equate them with criminals. It was just as a reference to the original show. Just so it's clear. Enjoy!

…

Sara isn't the sort of person who likes riddles. Now, _problems_ are a whole other matter: give her signs, give her symptoms, logical chains of events, and she'll diagnose you before you've had the time to say abracadabra. That was a running joke about her at the hospital, because she was the fastest to know what was wrong with a patient. Back in the days of her internship, it was _easy_ , because the answer was usually there on the patient's very face and body – rashes, nervous sweating, sallow complexion.

Maybe it was because treating people who were externally ill was too easy that Sara decided to work on helping the clinically insane. Really, the symptoms translated just as clearly through body language, their running talk or obsessions provided you with all the right clues to figure out what was ailing them. It wasn't exactly like solving a math problem, but it was a far cry from those silly riddles her colleagues sometimes teased her with ( _The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I_?) No thanks. If Sara wanted a headache, she'd bang her own head against the wall just like the inmates.

Not that that was an actual portrayal of what things were like, in Saint Abram's Asylum. Asylums were the kinds of places that suffered such distortions in the media, you just couldn't know what the inside of it looked like when you'd never stepped foot in one. For starters, the patients didn't actually beat their heads against the wall, that was second-degree talk. It wasn't awful like you would think, it wasn't _uncanny_ , with patients leering at you with bloodcurdling smiles, empty corridors at night filled with nothing but the sound of thunder and insane laughter. Really, it looked much like a regular hospital, with patients who were more drugged-out and, on the whole, easy to handle.

In this unexciting, sometimes uncomfortable everyday atmosphere, this world of sheer, logical _problems_ , Michael Scofield was the one exception, the riddle that upset Sara's perfect balance, that left her brain in a turmoil of frustrated incomprehension.

By no means was he more difficult than most patients. Michael took his meds without a struggle, every morning (or so the staff thought), and during his psychological evaluations, he was always very pleasant with her, actually courteous, which was rare around here.

What was puzzling about him wasn't even really his condition. Doctors and psychiatrists alike had concluded that Michael Scofield suffered from an acute monomania, which developed after the death of his only brother a couple of years ago. Around this period, Michael's behavior changed. At work, he was aloof, unfocused. This was evidently accepted as in relation with his mourning, but then, he started showing up late, disappearing for entire days without being able to explain himself.

Finally, after a year and a half during which Michael lost his job and became estranged from all of his close friends, he was taken in after having an extremely brutal fit in the middle of the street. Witnesses called the police, an ambulance (some even called the fire department). Apparently, the young man was raving like a wild demon, chasing a vehicle – he described it as a black Sedan, though no other bystander could verify its existence – shouting for people to stop the car, _They're going to kill him, they're going to kill him_.

Now, it was difficult for Sara to imagine calm and meditative Michael Scofield in such a state, but people said he was unstoppable, a real live wire. He simply lost it, was the diagnosis of most of his close relations, in concordance with the doctors who treated him.

When Michael gave his version of the facts to the police – psychiatrists only came later – he claimed his brother, Lincoln Burrows, was very much alive. For the past year and a half, he'd been living in some secret location amidst a group of people whose identity he couldn't reveal, and Michael had been helping him, helping _them_ , trying to bring down an evil corporation visibly affiliated with the government and which Michael clearly believed to be omnipotent.

'My brother worked for them, for a time,' Sara read from Michael's report. 'He's been involved with criminals most of his life. But when he realized more money meant larger scales – in the range of murder – he wanted out. But they wouldn't _let_ him out. So he faked his death.'

It was important that Michael admitted he didn't immediately know about this. For a few days, as far as the burial, Michael actually believed his brother was dead. It was only a while later that Lincoln contacted him and explained the situation.

Michael's file stipulated the brothers had been very close in their childhood, and it wasn't unthinkable that Lincoln's death had been enough of a trauma for Michael to invent a new reality in which his brother was alive and well. His talk on the evil entities that had entered his life ever since was remarkably stable. No confusion, no variation or mistakes on their identities. Unlike most patients suffering from such a condition, he didn't give vague descriptions of a plurality of 'men in black'. He was capable of giving a minute description of some of the faces he believed he had gotten a close look at. Apart from that, it was your regular conspiracy-theory inspired fantasy. Michael believed he lived in a persecuting universe. That not only he but his brother was in danger, because the evil corporation – he called it _the company_ – knew he was alive now.

But what was really, truly _odd_ about Michael Scofield, wasn't his story so much as his character. When Sara talked to him, even when she tried to prod him to talk about some of the elements of his imagined world, part of her couldn't adhere to the thought that he suffered from mental illness.

Sara had worked with insane people for a few years now, enough to always be able to get that _tick_ in her brain, when the pieces of the puzzle came together, when she could tell for sure that a certain mental ailment was the only solution to the problem exhibited by the patient.

Michael Scofield, in his furtive way of escaping categorization, was much more like a riddle ( _Now you see me now you don't_ ). Though Michael had been diagnosed clinically insane, Sara didn't believe him mad. And though, for the past few months, he had stopped talking about his fantasies altogether and was willing to admit they were a self-created fiction, Sara wasn't convinced he believed it.

But that was before her relationship with Michael Scofield changed drastically, before her life took a sudden turn no one could have prevented or foreseen.

The day had started out rather as usual, except that it was maybe slightly hotter – it had been a hot, very hot summer, and Sara could testify the heat doesn't make the inmates more manageable. Of course, most patients were allowed sometimes outside in the garden, but it was especially hard on those who were even restricted to solitary – the very few inmates here who were actually dangerous, who'd tried to hurt members of staff or other patients.

The former case was truly rarer than you would think. Instances of attacks on doctors or security guards were nearly inexistent. Though Sara couldn't deny working here every day required grit and nerve, she was never actually _afraid,_ walking down those corridors, doing her job, interacting with patients.

So, really, that day was just her luck. Sara was always bad with odds.

Her office at Saint Abram's was in the same wing as the confinement cells, at just a few corridors of distance. There _were_ other offices on that floor, but at noon, on such a day – the heat was stifling enough to drive sane people out of their wits – Sara's colleagues were most likely outside, enjoying their lunch break or on lunch duty with the inmates.

Sara wasn't actually planning to spend her one-hour break in her office herself, but there were some files she wanted to check out before her afternoon appointments. Really, she was just going to be a few minutes, maybe do a little paperwork and then be on her way, when she stumbled upon an inmate wandering in the halls.

First, she was only surprised because regular patients had no business in the left wing. And the patients who did, of course, had no business being _out_ of their cells.

The man caught sight of her at the exact same moment she did. The seriousness on his face drained the desire she'd had to chuckle, at the absurdity of her finding – and also, there was the recognition that followed a closer appraisal of him.

Of _all_ the patients in this building. Who could she run into, by herself, but Theodore Bagwell, no doubt freshly escaped from his cell, maybe the only inmate here who had _convinced_ the jury of his insanity to avoid prison in life or even capital punishment.

Sara didn't deny Bagwell _did_ have a troubled mind, was notably close to your idea of the _pervers narcissique_ who asserts his will through sadism. He hadn't seen many days outside of confinement – caused far too much trouble to be left amongst the other inmates. Oh, she'd heard _all_ the stories about him, each more sordid than the last, and though she hadn't seen much of Bagwell during his stay here, there'd been a couple of satisfied grins here and then, which were all to themselves nearly enough to convince Sara that Bagwell would have been more fitted in a prison than an asylum – except if it was the same asylum where they kept Hannibal Lecter.

"Oh, hell." She vaguely heard him mutter a curse.

Shock wore out for them both and Sara thought of turning around and running for dear life about the same time as Bagwell thought of grabbing her by the throat and pinning her to the wall.

Naturally, he acted faster. Because Sara couldn't have one day's luck in her life, could she?

"Don't scream." He commanded. "Don't do anything. You're in luck, honey. I'm pressed for time, so this won't hurt –"

He never got around to finish. Sara felt him suddenly collapse against the floor and, like a rabbit magically appearing out of a black hat, Michael Scofield stood erect before her.

It was so absurd Sara would have probably laughed, if it weren't for the shock and the chilling ghost of Bagwell's hand on her throat.

Her eyes went from the young man to the prostrate body on the floor. She hadn't even seen him strike, though he'd most likely thumped Bagwell's head against the wall, because his nose was burst and bleeding. She should call for backup, of course, but her thoughts weren't yet in order.

"Michael –"

He interrupted before she could think of a question. "We should go," he suggested politely. "He might wake up." You would think he was one of her colleagues rather than a patient, wandering around a wing he had no business in, especially when he should be downstairs having lunch with his fellow inmates.

It was a few seconds before she could manage a coherent objection. "No."

A flash of discomposure flew over his features, so quick it was barely there at all, before the same ask of courtesy was impeccably restored.

"No," she fumbled for her talkie – yes, they still used those, it was safer than dialing any emergency number and sent directly for the closest people at hand in the building. "I'll watch him, wait for a security team." Sara knelt carefully near Bagwell's body to examine his face. Blood gushed out of his nose, streaming down the lower half of his face and the shirt of his uniform. "He can't be left alone, he might choke."

She cast a look at Michael, whose face was strained with the effort of remaining impassive. Probably, he didn't care much whether Theodore Bagwell choked to death in his own blood.

In silence, he waited as she asked for a medical team and some security to come to the third floor, in the left wing, immediately.

Then he let out an urgent exhale and, when she met his eyes, they were a turmoil of buried concern. "Please." He said. "Can you _please_ not tell them I helped you? If I go, right now, they don't have to see us together."

"What?" Sara shook her head, as if to shake the absurdity from his words. "Michael, there are cameras here –"

"The cameras were tampered with."

Realization dropped like a rock down Sara's stomach. "You were escaping with him. Bagwell. That's what you're doing here, you were with him in the first place –"

"I don't have time to explain." He cut her off. The urgency in his voice was significant, like it was a matter of life or death. "You have to believe me, please. They can't know I helped you. If they see you as connected with me you'll be in danger – great danger, Doctor Tancredi. Please."

Sara was at a loss for a reaction, her mouth slightly agape. "Are you threatening me?"

"I'm trying to _help_ you."

From a distance, the sound of footsteps started being heard. Michael looked back at her, more serious than ever. "I was never here." He said. "You must trust me."

"Michael –"

"I know you don't think I'm insane." He interrupted. "I've been around enough people who do to be able to tell the difference."

She realized she couldn't deny his argument. Instead, clenching her jaw, she replied on a gentle tone. "Michael, you know I have to report you. Both of you –"

"You can say you knocked out Bagwell yourself. He won't rat me out. Not now, anyway, and it'll buy us time. It's the only way you can be safe. I'm sorry."

Then he was suddenly racing down the closest staircase, disappearing as abruptly as he'd appeared, leaving Sara alone, stunned, unaware that her life had just changed forever.

…

 **End Notes** : this should be a rather long story so it made sense to start with a long chapter. I hope you've enjoyed this. I might change the rating to M in later chapters if it gets too dark (do let me know if you think it's necessary). Please share your thoughts and reactions, I'd love to know where you think this is going.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Deeper and Deeper

In the forty-eight hours that followed the incident, Sara could think of little else, could not sleep or eat or focus on work, without her exchange with Michael Scofield flashing through her brain.

 _Danger_ , he'd said.

Great danger.

 _So after all_ , she thought, _he's insane_.

And yet, she couldn't satisfy herself with this conclusion.

Of course, it wasn't just the mystery that made her so obsessed but _guilt_. Professional impropriety. She had lied for an inmate. Worse, she'd participated in covering up his escape, and though this would be unlikely to get her into trouble – even if Bagwell did claim Michael was his accomplice, her voice would be credited more than his, the advantage of not being a clinically insane patient – her mind couldn't get past this unprecedented fault. What had she been thinking?

Had _not_ been thinking, really.

It all happened so fast, Michael disappearing and the staff joining her and asking what had happened, if she was all right. Really, Sara wished she could make them share the blame for her silence, that she could think she hadn't said the truth because they hadn't asked the right questions. If they had asked her, outright, _Was Bagwell alone?_ , or, _Did you see any other inmate around here?,_ she didn't believe she could have plainly said: No.

Omitting the truth was just as bad as lying but, by the time she was done debating whether or not it was the right thing to do, it was too late to come clean, anyway.

After the incident, the head of the asylum, Henry Pope, had sent Sara home immediately, not wanting to hear a word of protest. "We can talk about what happened tomorrow. You shouldn't be working right now." Pope didn't have one of these faces that have been taught to lie, and it was clear he felt awful about the whole thing – and also, that he was a little impressed Sara had apparently knocked out such an incredibly dangerous individual as Theodore Bagwell.

So, Sara went home – what else was there to do? – and when, the next day, it was time to give a detailed account of what had happened, she neglected to include Michael's intervention. You can believe she lost sleep over that interview in Pope's office ( _what will I tell him whatwillItellhim?_ ), and replaying Michael's words in her head, that blood-chilling seriousness in his eyes when he warned her – yes, she was convinced now it was a warning, not a threat – _You'll be in danger. Great danger, Doctor Tancredi._

It would have been too late to talk about Michael on the next day, anyway. Pope would want to know why she had waited so long, it wouldn't reflect well on her at all. Already, she could picture her boss's lips tightening with disapproval under his thick mustache.

Lying was so easy that, at first, Sara didn't fully register that's what she was doing.

But then, it was a long couple of days at work. In the corridors, when they crossed ways, Sara felt Michael's eyes were fleeting hers. Not in a way that looked overtly shameful but rather indifferent, as if the incident had been wiped out of his memory.

At some point, a thought half-consciously made its way to Sara's brain – I _'m crazy_ – but she suppressed it so intently it was almost like it didn't exist.

It was during her lunch break spent at a bakery near the asylum with her colleague Katie that Sara first dared to speak a word about what was on her mind. She was the one who'd insisted they didn't eat at the cafeteria as always. _If I don't get out of that asylum for an hour,_ Sara had thought, _I'm going to wind up insane myself._ Lately, she found these weren't safe thoughts to be having.

"What's with you, Sara? You've barely eaten."

The young woman looked up from her nearly untouched sandwich. A sudden boldness – maybe it was encouraged by the lack of sleep – prompted her to ask, "Katie, you did a lot of psych-evaluations on the new inmates that got turned in last winter, right? Bagwell, Scofield –""

"Hey." Katie interrupted. Adopting a concerned look Sara didn't immediately understand. "With what happened a couple of days ago, I don't think it'd be such a good idea for me to tell you about Bagwell's case."

"Scofield." Sara corrected, sounding serious. A line came between her friend's brows. "I want to talk about Michael Scofield."

"Oh. Well, I guess that'd be all right –"

"What do you think about him?" Sara could barely wait for her to finish. _Relax, get it together_ , she tried to will some good sense into herself, tried for this not to come off as a sleepless obsession. "I mean," she cleared her throat, "what's your medical opinion?"

"You mean, beside his monomaniac fantasies? I'm confused, Sara, isn't Scofield one of your patients now? Haven't you read my report –"

"Yes, I just wanted to know –" _Slow down_. Sara clenched her teeth, forced herself to pause for a few seconds, get a coherent sentence in order. "I just thought there might be a few things here and there you didn't put in. Like your personal thoughts."

"I thought you were asking for my professional opinion."

Sara sensed a turn in the air. What was wrong with her? She was like an animal smelling danger. Cautiously, she put on a smile that looked exceptionally strained.

"Just – anything you can tell me."

The frown was still there on Katie's face. After a moment of silent deliberation, she crossed her hands over her chest. Then, Sara knew to be careful, too.

"If you're not a little more specific as to what you want to know, I don't see how I can help you."

Sara nodded. _Casual_. "Okay, well, you were one of the doctors who diagnosed Scofield, right?"

"Right."

"Do you know if there were other doctors on the board who didn't agree with the official diagnosis?"

"You _don't_ think Michael Scofield is delusional?"

"I didn't say that."

"No, Sara. No, there was no one who questioned our judgement. Look," Katie sighed, "it's not even as if Scofield's case were uncommon. It falls into the same lines as every typical imaginary universe people create for themselves after a trauma. The beloved brother isn't dead but hiding and under threat. The mechanism enabling him to avoid grieving translates as a paranoid anti-social behavior, as the fantasy takes over everything real in his life–"

"I know all that."

"Then why did you ask?"

Sara clamped her mouth shut. A certain darkness seemed to fall over the bakery. A cold wind, seeping through the window, a foreboding shadow in the very sunlight that bathed their table. For a moment, she felt ridiculously afraid, found herself thinking not like her own self, but like Michael.

 _She suspects you_ , it was his voice in her head, his blue eyes screaming in every beat of her heart.

"I don't know," she admitted. Added, maybe more to herself than to her friend. "I probably shouldn't have."

…

Theodore Bagwell, she heard later that afternoon, was now functional and in his right mind – so to speak – fully recovered from the blow she'd supposedly given him.

"That was some great job you did, Sara," Brad Bellick told her while they were both queuing for the coffee machine, after lunch.

"Huh?" Sara couldn't help but sound confused.

"Your handling of Bagwell," he said. "Remarkable. Gotta tell you, I've been hoping I'd have the chance to get my hands on the man myself one of these days."

"Oh, that's not –"

"But coming from someone like you? Don't take that personally, ahem – but from a woman?"

Sara was at a loss even what to think.

"That's just bloody wonderful. I respect that a lot."

Sara's mouth was half-open, silently protesting but not having had sufficient sleep in the past couple of days to think of how to stop him. Ultimately, she just looked back ahead of her and caved in. She only hoped Brad wouldn't think this was the ideal time to reiterate his offer to drive her home. There'd not been _that_ many in the past, but enough for Sara to fear it was likely to happen again.

You had to be _firm_ with such men, and firm was something Sara didn't apparently master.

Too busy walking through the motions, probably, trying to be a good person. But now, this sudden event that rocked everything, that flash of an icy graveness in Michael's eyes, that _great danger_ lurking about.

By the end of the day, she was sleepwalking, uncertain whether the thoughts she was having were awake or a dream, if she was saying them out loud.

She was going to get herself another coffee when, out of the blue, just as she was making her way through the corridor, two hands grabbed her, the one by the arm, the other covering her mouth, and dragged her into the nearest broom closet.

The stale air and suffocating darkness were enough to shake Sara out of her drowsiness. The man was holding her tight against his front – Sara was too shocked for fear, too numb for thoughts.

"Don't scream. It's just me," he said, as if this were supposed to be reassuring.

He removed his hands from her. Sara turned around as well as she could – the closet was narrow, not dark enough that she couldn't make out the inmate in front of her. And she'd recognized his voice, anyway.

" _Michael_?"

"It's all right," he assured. "I'm sorry I scared you, but I had to make sure the cameras didn't see us. I know you must have a lot of questions, and I've been ignoring you for the past days – all for your own good," he specified. "I couldn't risk your talking to me about what had happened, they would have found out."

A sigh broke past Sara's lips. Who was she kidding? Of course, the man was crazy. Completely, clinically crazy.

"Michael," she said, "what happened the other day – it was wrong. I shouldn't have covered for you, and it shouldn't have given you the idea that I'm your ally and therefore in danger. You understand? You can't just grab me and drag me somewhere like this –"

"I had to." He interrupted. "Bagwell told on us."

An inexplicable shiver crawled down her spine. It was like a live spider, whose legs gripped at every nerve, pulling the strings on Sara's fear.

If she was going to be afraid, it should be of the inmate who'd drawn her into a broom closet, not of the things he said.

"I didn't hear about this," she remarked.

"No. The staff isn't taking it seriously," he answered, without leaving her enough time to ask how he knew this. "But it doesn't matter. _They've_ heard. And they're serious enough about it."

"Michael –"

"No, please. Listen to me," he urged. "They know you've lied for me. They must suspect we're working together." The desperation in his eyes made the hairs in her neck stand on end. She'd be incapable to say why this got to her so deeply. "That means you aren't safe anymore, Doctor. I'm sorry. You have to leave this place. You have to run while you still can. If they're not tracking you already, you have a chance to get away –"

"Michael, I'm not going to run away. It's absurd." She realized she was talking to him as to a sane person.

He inhaled sharply. Knowing he wouldn't convince her, not knowing what to do but try. "Will you just do something for me, then?"

There was wariness in her tone. "What?"

"Look out for cars with tinted windows. When you go home tonight, when you wake up tomorrow – look out for them, around your building."

"But –"

"Look out for the _man_ , Sara," he interrupted. "The man I spoke of, the man in black with the sunglasses. There's a sketch in my file, please, look it up."

They stood there, silently staring at each other for God knew how long, and Sara realized she wasn't breathing. The inhale she drew in tasted rank.

"I have to go, Michael."

"Please, say you'll do this."

Uncertain what else to do, she answered, "I will."


End file.
